Dark spots, some as large as 50,000 miles in diameter, typically move across the surface of the sun, contracting and expanding as they go. These strange and powerful phenomena are known as sunspots, but now they are all gone. Not even solar physicists know why it’s happening and what this odd solar silence might be indicating for our future.

Although periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, this current
period has gone on much longer than usual and scientists are starting
to worry—at least a little bit.

He also noted
that the world cooled quickly between January last year and January
this year, by about 0.7C.

“This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and
it puts us back to where we were in 1930,” Dr Chapman noted in The
Australian today.